•Z29 





Class. 
Book_ 






417 




VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON. 

33(^7 ; 

\ 

EXTIIA.CTS 



FROM TIIKIR 



MAl^USCRIPT TRANSACTIONS: 



WITH NOTES, 



BY EDWARD D. NEILL 




WASHINGTON: 

GOVERKMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 

1868. 



^^^^^^ 



V'lilGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON, 



EXTR A.CTS 



FROM THEIR 



MANUSCRIPT TMNSACTIONS: 



AVITH NOTES, 



/ I 

BY EDWARD D. NEILL 




Ij^tm^^^' 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1868. 



■) 



v^ MEMORIAL 



THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



While historians have made diligent seai'ch in the state paper office of Great 
Britain for documents illustrative of the e^rlj colonization of the territory com- 
prised within the limits of the United States of America, they appear to have 
overlooked the most valuable manuscripts of that period, in the Library of Con- 
gress, which are the minutes and transactions of the great LDudou corporation, 
known as the Virginia Company, from the year 1619 to its dissolution, and 
written out by their own secretaries. 

The memorialist, while preparing for publication a little book called Terra 
Marioe, or Threads of Maryland Colonial History, made himself familiar with 
the obsolete chirography and interesting contents of these records, and proposes, 
without pecuniary compensation, to annotate and prepare the manuscripts for pub- 
lication, under the direction of the Librarian of Congress, provided he is author- 
ized to employ two copyists, each at SSO per month, for a period not exceeding 
twelve months, and has a small sum appropriated for necessary stationery and 
contingent expenses. 

The records, if printed, would form two octavo volumes of about 500 pages 
each. The appended extracts will give some idea of the varied contents of these 
records. To those who may think the labor would be unnecessary, I can only 
quote a sentence from the letter of Governor Dudley of Massachusetts, written 
in 1630, to the Countess of Lincoln : 

If any tax me for wasting paper with recording- these small matters, such may consider 
that small things, in the beginning of natural or politic bodies, are as remarkable as greater 
jn bodies full grown. 

All which is respectfully submitted. 

EDWARD D. NEILL. 
May 26, 1868. 



V 



EXTRACTS 

FROM THE 

MANUSCRIPT RECORDS OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON. 



PATENT FOR THE LEYDEN PURITANS. 

May 26, ] 6 19. — " One Mr. Wyncop* commended to the company by the Earl 
of Lincohit, intending to go in person to Virginia, and there to plant himself 
and his associates, presented his patent now to the court, which was referred to 
the committee that meeteth upon Friday morning at Mr. Treasurer's house, to 
consider, and if need be, to correct the same." 

June 17, 1619. — "By reason it grew late, and the court ready to break up, 
and as yet Mr. John Whincop'sJ patent for him and his associates to be read, 
it was ordered that the seal should be annexed unto it,§ and referred the trust 
thereof to the auditors, to examine that it agree with original, which if it does 
not, they have permission to bring it into the court and cancel it." 

February 2, 1619, old style. || — A grant of land to "John Peirce^ and his 
associates, their heirs and assigns." 

" It-was ordered allso,** by generale consent, that such captaines or leaders of 
particularr plantations that shall go there to inhabite by virtue of their grants, and 
plant themselves, their tenants, and servants in Virginia, shall have liberty, till 

* Palfrey, in his accurate History of New England, quoting Bradford, says the patent of the 
Leydeu people was "not taken in the name of any of their own company, but in the name 
of Mr. John Wincob, a religious gentleman then belonging to the Countess of Lincoln, who 
intended to go with them." 

t Thomas Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, had three daughters — Frances, the wife of John, a son 
of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; Susan, the wife of John Humphrey, first deputy governor of 
Massachusetts bay; Arbella, the wife of Isaac Johnson, one of the settlers of Salem, 
Massachusetts. The ship Arbella, which landed Winthrop and company at Salem, was so 
named in compliment to Lady Arbella. 

t In, the records this name is also written Wyucopp. Our histories spell it Wencob. Brad- 
ford, speaking of Wyncopp, says, "God so disposed, as he never went." 

^S The date of this patent has hitherto been unknown to historians, (Palfrey, volume ], 
p. 154.) Bradford in History of New Plymouth, says, " This being sent over for them (at 
Leyden) to consider." 

II In Elugland the new year commenced on March 25 until 1752, when the Gregorian or 
New Style was adopted. 
vlf John Peirce and other traders of London appear to have made a contract with the Leyden 
people and furnished them with transportation to, and subsistence, after reaching the coast 
of America, and two or three months before the sailing of the colonists of the Mayflower, 
endeavored to have intrusted to them a fund given to the Virginia Ci)mpany for the educa- 
tion of Indian children. 

**^In this extract the spelling of the manuscript is retained. 



6 

a forme of government be there settled them, of associatnige unto them divers 
of the gravest and discreetest of then- companies, to make orders, ordinances, and 
constitutions for the better orderinge and dyrectiuge of their servants and busines, 
provided they be not repugnant to the hiwes of Enghand." * 

Fehruary 16, 1619, old style.! — " Whereas, at the last court a special com- 
mittee was appointed for the managing of the .€500 given by an unknown per- 
son for educating the infidels' children, Mr. Treasurer signified that they have 
met and taken into consideration the proposition of Sir John Wolstenholme,| 
that John Peirce and his associates might have the training and bringing up of 
some of these children ; but the said committee, for divers reasons, think it 
inconvenient ; first, because they intend not to go this two or three months, and 
then, afrer their arrival will belong in settling themselves; as also, that the 
Indians are not acquainted with them, and so they may stay four or five years 
before they have account that any good is done." 

July 16, 1621. — " It was moved, seeing that Mr. John Peirce had taken a 
patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and thereupon seated his company within limits 
of the northern plantations, as by some was supposed, -whereby he seemed to 
relinquish the benefit of the patent he took of this company, that therefore the 
said patent might be called in, unless it might appear he would begin to plant 
within the limits of the southern colony." § 

* By pemiissiou of the Virginia Company, tlie first representative and legislative assembly 
in America had met on July 30, 1619, at Jamestown, and Sir Edwin Sandys and associates 
were ready to concede to the people of the proposed new plantation the liberty of framing 
their own laws. 

fThe germs of republican liberty were brought with the emigrants fiom the old world 
and rapidly grew in the new settlements. 

X Sir John Wolstenholme was a prominent London merchant, with whom Brewster, Cush- 
man, and others of the Leyden people had correspondence. 

He had assisted in settling Kent isle, in the Chesapeake, before Baltimore obtained his 
patent for Maryland. At his sole expense, in 1032 he built a church at Stanmore, near 
London, and after his death, at the age of 77 years, was, on November 25, 1639, there 
buried. 

§ Palfrey and others appear to think that the original destination of the Maytlower was to 
the territory of the London Company or southern colony. But the above minute of this 
company shows that Peirce. had been in the interest of Gorges and others, proprietors of the 
northern co'ony. In the compact of government drawn up in the cabin of the Mayflower, 
and sigued November 11, 1620, the passengers state that they have undertaken " a voyao-e 
to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia." 

The records of the Virginia Company agree with the statement of Morton, who says that 
they " obtained letters patent, for the northern part of Virginia, of King James of famous 
memory." Governor Dudley also stated in 1630, "They, of Plymouth, came with patents 
from King James, and have since obtained others." 

An examination of the patent granted by the council of New England, on June 1, 1621, 
shows that there had been an arrangement with John Peirce ; the agreement is " between 
the president and council of New England, of the one party, and John Peirce, citizen and 
cloth-worker of London, and his associates of the other party, witnesseth, that whereas, the 
said John Peirce and his associates, have already transported, and undertaken to transport, 



DISPUTE OF NORTH AND SOUTH COLONY. 

MarcJi 15, 1619, old style — Sir Edwin Sandys said : " That the north colony 
intending to re-plant themselves in Virginia, had petitioned to the king and to 
the lords for the obtaining a new patent, which the lords referred unto the Lord 
Duke and the Lord of Arundel. And the Lord Arundel delivered it to him for 
t) call the council, understanding of some differences about fishing betwixt them, 
and that if they could not determine on it, that thcnjLo return their opinions to 
their lordslnps, whereupon, accordingly having met, and, as formerly, disputed 
the business, they could not conclude thereof, but dissented the one from the 
other, that therefore, according to his lordship's command, the court would please 
to nominate some to give intelligence how the business betwixt them doth depend, 
v/hich the court, perceiving not to understand the cause so well as himself, niost 
earnestly besought him to take the pains, which he being very loth and unwil- 
ling, by reason of tlie exceeding multitude of the company's business depending 
upon him, desired to be excused ; but not prevailing, he \vas so earnestly solicited 
thereunto, he could not gainsay it, whereupon they associated unto him Sir John 
Danvers, Mr. Harbert, and Mr, Keightley to report thereon to-morrow morning 
at 8 of the clock."* 

May 11, 1620. — "Forasmuch as the north colony hath petitioned to the king 

at their cost and charges, themselves and divers persons into New England." (Massachu- 
setts Historical Society Collections; fourth series, volume 2. ) 

Weston also, on July G, 1621, writes from London, "We hav(>, procured you a charter 
which is better than your former, and with less limitation." (Bradford's New Plymouth.) 

Gorges and associates succeeded, on July 23, ]G20, in having a warrant from King James 
directed to the proper officer, ordering a new patent to be sealed for the northern colony, 
although imtil November 3 the seal was not affixed. Bradford, in allusion to the strife to 
secure the Puritan colonists, remarks: " About this time they had heard, by Mr. Weston and 
others, that sundry honorable lords had obtained a large grant from the King for the more 
northerly part of that country, distinct from the Virginia patent, and wholly secluded from 
Virginia government, to be called by another name, viz : New England. Unto which Mr. 
Weston and the chiefest of them began to incline, thinking it was best for them to go to, as 
for other reasons, chiefly for the hope of present profit to be made by fishing. But in all busi- 
ness the acting part is most difficult, especially when the work of many agents must concur. 
Sii it was found in them, for some of them who should have gone, in England, fell off and 
would not go. Other merchants and friends that had ofiered to adventure the money with- 
drew and pretended many excuses. Some, disliking, weut to Guiana; others, again, would 
adventure nothing unless they went to Virginia, and those who were most relied on fell in utter 
dislike of Virginia, and would do nothing if they went thither. 

"Howbeit the patent for the northern part of the country not being fully settled at that 
time, they resolved to adventure with the patent they had intending for some place more 
southward than they fell upon, in the voyage at Cape Cod, as may appear afterwards." 

Captain Jones, the navigator of the Mayflower, and Joliu Peirce probably had arranged 
as to destination without the knowledge of the passengers. 

* On the 18th of March, the company met at the capacious mansion of Sir Thomas Smith, 
in Phil|)ot lane, when Sir Edwin Sandys reported that the committee had appeared before 
their lordships, and had there met Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others of the northern cnlony, 
and that their lordships, after listening to both sides, "pleased neither to allow nor disallow 
entirely, the one party or the other." 



for obtaining a new patent, and therein to declare tlie one colony to liave privi- 
leges within the other, this company finding themselves grieved thereby, being 
a means to debar them from the immunities, his Majesty hath freely and gra- 
ciously granted them for matter of fishing, it is agreed that a petition likewise 
be exhibited to his Majesty for this company." 

Novemhei- 4, 1620. — Sir Edwin Sandys remarked : " That he was informed 
that Sir Ferdinando Gorges had procured unto himself and others a new patent 
(now passed his Majesty's great seal) wherein certain words were conveyed that 
did not only contradict a former order of the lords of the counsel, which the 
lords, after a full hearing of the allegations on both sides, had set down in June 
last, by which this company had yielded some of their right to do them good, 
had. thereby promised to fish only for their necessities and transportation of peo- 
ple; but, by this new grant, the adventurers of the northern colony had also 
utterly excluded those of the southern from fishing upon that coast, without 
their leave and license first sought and obtained, which was contrary and mani- 
festly repugnant to that community and freedom which his Majesty, by the first 
patent, it is conceived, hath been pleased to grant unto the other colony. 

" l^he court, therefore, knowing no reason why they should lose their former 
right granted unto them by the first patent, the sea also being to all as free and 
common as the air, and finding less reason why Sir Ferdinando Gorges should 
now appropriate and make a monopoly of the fishing, which hath already cost 
this company c£6,000, the only means left (now the lotteries are almost spent 
and other supply begins to fail) to enable them to transport the people and sus- 
tain their plantation withal, did, with a general consent, resolve forthwith to 
petition to his Majesty for a redress herein, and to pray a further declaration of 
his gracious pleasure and intention concerning that clause of prohibition and 
restraint inserted in the new patent, whereby they were defeated of their liberty 
of fishing. Whereupon they appointed the committee to draw the said petition, 
and to make it, in substance, agreeable to those three points Sir Edwin Sandys 
had delivered in open court. And for that Sir Thomas Roe was the next day 
to go to the court, they desiring him to present the same to his Majesty."* 

Koveviber 13, 1620. — " Sir Thomas Roe made now a report of his highness's 
gracious answer thereunto, who said that if anything were passed in New Eng- 
land patent that might be prejudicial to the southern colony, it was surrepti- 
tiously done, and that he had been abused thereby by those that pretended 
otherwise unto him. It pleased his Majesty to express as much, in effect, to ray 



* The Virginia Company was looked upou by James as the nursery of a seditious parlia- 
meut, while Gorges and others of the north colony were court favorites, and his Majesty 
granted the request of the latter, and, on July 23, directed a warrant which, on November 
3, 1620, was, says Bancroft, issued to forty of his subjects, some of them members of his 
household and his government, the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility, a 
patent which, in American annals, and even in the history of the world, has but one paral- 
lel. The adventurers and their successors were incorporated as "The Council established 
at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of 
New England, in America." 



Lord of Southampton, with many other gracious words, in commendation of this 
phuitation, and signified further that his ]\rajesty forthwith gave commandment to 
my Lord Chancellor, then present, that if this new patent were not sealed for to 
forbear the seal, and if it were sealed and not delivered, that they should keep 
it in hand till they were better informed. His lordship further signified that 
upon Saturday last they had been with my Lord Chancellor about it, when were 
present the Duke of Lenox, the Earl of Arundel, Mr. Secretary, (Calvert,) and 
some others, who, after a full hearing of the allegations on both sides, did order 
that the patent should be delivered to be perused by some of the southern col- 
ony, who are to make report of what provisions they find thereunto at the next 
meeting." * 

BALLOTING BOX. 

February 22, 1619, old style. — " Mr. Treasvirer signified unto them of the 
balloting-boxt standing upon the table, how it was intended at first another 
Avay as might appear by the arms upon it ; but now Mr. HoUoway had given it 
freely to this company, that therefore, to gratify him, they would entertain him 
into their Society by giving him a single share of land in Virginia, which being 
put to the question was ratified unto him ; whereupon Mr. Deputy was entreated 
to provide a case for the better preserving of it. 

* Two days later the Earl of Southamptou had another interview with the privy council, 
and signified that by a late conference with Sir Ferdinando Gorges they were now more in 
accord, "for that it was agreed upon both sides, for some important reasons, to renounce 
either of the patents, which was promised should be done by mutual advice of the counsel. 
Whereupon their lordships answered that, in the meanwhile, the patent of Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges should be sequestered and deposited in my Lord Chancellor's hands, according to his 
Majesty's express command." 

tThe London Athenjxjum of April 11, 18(58, in an article on voting by the ballot-box, 
says : "Mr. John Bruce has turned up, within the last few days, a couple of papers which 
let us into the important secret of how and why the ballot-box was finally brought into use 
among us. It was not the first time, but it was the final time. It came to us from Holland 
in the bad days of Charles I ; came in the year 1637." 

The records of the Virginia Company show its use much earlier. It appears, however, 
from the same article, that King Charles ordered the discontinuance of the ballot-box. The 
order reads thus : 

"At Hampton Court, this \lth of Snpt ember, 16:57. 

" His Majesty this day sitting in council, taking into consideration the manifold inconven- 
iences that may arise by the use of balloting-boxes, which is, of late, begun to be practiced 
by some corporations and companies, did declare his utter dislike thereof, and, with the advice 
of their lordships, ordered that no coporation nor company, either within the city of Loudon 
and liberties, or elsewhere in this his Majesty's kingdom, shall use or permit to be used in 
any businesses Avhatever, any balloting-box, as they tender his Majesty's displeasure, and 
will answer the contrary at their peril. 

"Whereof, as well the lord mayor of the city of London, for the time being, and all other 
mayors and head officers of corporations, as all governors, masters, and wardens of all com- 
panies in and about die cities of London and Westminster, and elsewhere, are to take notice 
and to see this his Majesty's pleasure and commandment duly observed." 



10 



ELECTION OF SECRETARY OF THE COLONY. 

June 11, 1621. — Sir Edwin Sandys said, " But touching tlie secretary of 
state there, that now is, (Mr. Porey,*) it remained to know their pleasure, whether 
they would continue him still in his said office or make a change. Whereupon it 
was signified that forasmuch- as Mr. Porey had not carried himself well, in the 
said place, to the contentment of the company, it was considered to be the gen- 
eral purpose of the court to change him for a better, so near as they could, and 
therefore desired some others might be nominated unto them. Whereupon Mr. 
Deputy gave notice of four worthy gentlemen that had been recommended unto 
him for that place, all of them well-bred, sufficiently well qualified, so as the 
meanest of them seemed more worthy of a better place, not in respect of the 
quality thereof, but in respect of the entertainment belonging thereunto ; so as 
it was his grief that they had not places for them all, but must be forced to dis- 
miss three of them. 

* John Poroy was a graduate of Cambridge a great traveller and good writer, but gained 
the reputation of being a chronic tippler, and literary vagabond and sponger. A letter- 
writer on August 11, 1612, says : "It is long since I heard of Master Pory, but now at last 
understand he lies lieger at Paris, maintained by the Lord Carevv." 

Sir Dudley Carleton, wrote on July 9, 1613, from Venice: "Master Pory is come to 
Turin with purpose to see those parts, but wants primum necessarium, and hath, therefore, 
conjured me with these words — liy the kind and constant intelligence which passeth hetwixt 
you and mij best friends in England — to send him fourteen doubloons, wherewith to disengage 
him, where he lies in pawn, not knowing how to go forward or backward. I have done 
more in respect of his friends than himself, for I hear he is fallen too much in love with the 
pot to be much esteemed, and have sent him what he wrote for by Matthew, the post." 

A correspondent of Carleton wrote on August 1 of the same year: "You had not need 
meet with many such poor moths as Master Pory, who must have both meat and money, 
for drink he will find out himself, if it be above ground, or no deeper than the cellar.'''' 

Sir Dudley Carleton, on August 22, 1617, writes from Hague to a friend: "If Mr. Porey 
have done with Constantinople, and can Star Suldo against the pot, which is hard in this 
country, he shall be welcome unto me, for I love an old acquaintance." After visiting Con- 
stantinople he was, for a brief period in 1617, an attache of the English legation at the Hague, 
about the time of the residence there of the learned Puritan divine, Dr. William Ames, whose 
preaching the English Ambassador attended. lu 1619 he was made secretary of the colony of 
Virginia, and after his recall, while returning to England, he stopped at the infant Plymouth 
settlement and had pleasant intercourse with Governor Bradford and Eider Brewster, with 
Avhom he may have been acquainted in Holland, and received from them some books, w^hich 
he esteemed as "jewels," he says, in a note to Bradford dated August 28, 1622, and signed, 
" Your unfeigned and firm friend." (See Bradford's New Plymouth.) 

A letter from Loudon, dated July 26, 1623, says: " Oi(r old acquaintance, Mr. Porej^, is 
in poor case, and in prison at the Terceras, whitlier he was driven, by contrary winds, from 
the north coast of Virginia, where he had been upon some discovery, and upon his arrival 
was anaigned and in danger to be hanged for a pirate." 

On his arrival in London he ass-ociated with the disaffected miuorily of the Viri;inia com- 
pany, who succeeded in arousing the prejudices of the King so as to deprive them of the 
government of the colony. 

In 1624 he was one of a commission appointed by order of James to proceed to Virginia 
and report upon its condition. At Jamestown he displayed a lack of honor in bribing 
Edward Sharpless, clerk of the council, to give him a copy of their proceedings, for which 
the perjured clerk was made by the Virginians to stand in the pillory and lose an ear. 



11 

"The names of tbe said gentlemen were these : Mr. Paramore, Mr. Davison, 
Mr. Smith, aud Waterhouse, who hath been recommended by Sir John Danvers 
for three things especially, namely, liis honesty, religion, and snfBeiency, for 
which he would undertake, upon that knowledge they had of him, this gentle- 
man, Mr. Waterhouse, should make good to give full satisfaction. 

" But it was signified that they all four having been recommended to the Lord 
of Southampton, his lordship was so nobly minded toward this company as to 
leave them to their free liberty of choice of any of them by an orderly election , 
and therefore wi.shed they would, iu the mean time, make some further inquiry 
against the next court." 

June 13. — Mr. Deputy stated that there were four gentlemen proposed for 
the secretary's place, "being all of them recommended, by worthy persons, 
for their honesty, sufficiency, and experience in secretary affairs, but because 
no more but three could stand for the election, it was put to the question which 
three they would have nominated for that purpose, whereupon Mr. Smith* was 
dismissed, and the other three appointed to stand tor the election, who being all 
three met to the balloting-box, choice was made of Mr. Davison, he having the 
majority of balls, who, being called in to take notice that the secretary's place 
was fallen upon him, did declare his thard-tful acknowledgments of their favor 
towards him, promising his best to answer their expectations of him." 

HOMELESS BOYS AND GIRLS OF LOiXDON. 

To the Right Honorable Sir Wm. Cockaine,t knight lord mayor of the city of 
London, and the right worthys the aldermen, his brethren, and the worthys 
the common council of the city : 
The treasurer, council, and company of Virginia, assembled in their great and 

* Captain Jolin Smith. 

t William Cockaine was a distinguished niercbant; sheriff in 1609; chief of the lunv com- 
pany of merchant adventurers, which gave King James a great banquet on June 22, l(i09, 
at his house, aud there knighted. He died iu 1G26, and the distinguished poet and divine, 
John Donue, preached his funeral sermon. 

The following letter of Sir Edwin Sandys on January 28, 1G20, to one of the King's sec- 
retaries, Sir Kobert Naunton, shows that the children were not always willing to embark. 

"The city of London have appointed one hundred children from the superfluous multi- 
tude to be transported to Virginia, there to be bound apprentices upon very beneficial con- 
ditions They have also granted £500 for their passage and outfit. Some of the ill-disposed 
childien, who, under severe masters iu Virginia, may be brought to goodness, and of whom 
the city is specially desirous to be disburdened, declare their unwillingness to go. The city 
wanting authority to deliver, and the Virginia Company to transport these children against 
their will, desire higher authority to get over the difldculty." (Cal. State Papers, Colonial 
Series. ) 

Another paper will throw some light on the abases iu this business. 
" Sir Edwtird Hext, Justice of the Peace of Somersetshire, to the Privy Council : 

" Upon complaint that Owen Evans, messenger of the Chamber, had a pretended commis- 
sion to press maidens to be sent to Virginia and the Bermudas, and received money thereby, 
he issued a warrant for his apprehension. Evans' undue proceedings bred such terror to the 
poor maidens that 40 have fled from one parish to obscure places, aud their parents do not 
know what has become of them." 



12 

general court tlie 17tli of November, 1G19, have taken into consideration the 
continual great forwardness of this honourable citj in advancing the jjlantation 
of Virginia, and particularly in furnishing out one hundred children this last 
year, which, by the goodness of God, have safely arrived (save such as died in 
the way) and are well pleased, we doubt not, for this benefit, for which, your 
bountiful assistance, we, in the name of the whole plantation, do yield unto you 
deserved thanks. 

And forasmuch as we have now resolved to send this next spring very large 
supp'lies for the strength and increasing of the colony, styled by the name of the 
London colony, and find that the sending of these children to be apprenticed 
hath been very grateful to the people, we pray your lordship and the rest, 
pursuit of your former so precious actions, to renew the like favours, and furnish 
us again with one hundred more for the next spring. 

Our desire is that we may have them of 12 years old and upward, with allow- 
ance of c£3 apiece for their transportation, and 40*. apiece for their apparel, as 
was formerly granted. They shall be apprenticed ; the boys till they come to 
21 years of age ; the girls till like age, or till they be married, and afterward 
they shall be placed as tenants upon the public lands, with best conditions, 
where they shall have houses with stock of corn and cattle to begin with, and 
afterward the moiety of all increase and profit whatsoever. 

And so we leave this motion to your honourable and grave consideration. 

COMPANION OF POCAHONTAS SICK IN LONDON. 

May 11, 1620. — "The court taking notice from Sir William Throgmorton 
that one of the maidens which was brought over by Sir Thomas Dale* from 
Virginia, a native of the country, who sometimes dwelt as a servant with a mer- 
cer in Oheapside, is now very weak of a consumption at Mr. Gouge's in the 
Blackfriars, who hath great care and taken great pains to comfort her both in 
soul and body ; whereupon for her recovery the company are agreed to be at the 
charge of XXs. a week for three months, (if it please God she be not before the 
expiration thereof, restored to health or die in the mean season,) for the administer- 
ing of physick and cordials for her health, and that the first payment begin this 
day seven-night, because Mr. Treasurer, for this year, reported his accounts 
were set up. 

" Sir William Throgmorton, out of his priv^ate purse, promised to give XL.?., all 
which money is ordered to be paid to Mr. Gouge through the good assurance 
that the company hath of his careful management." 

* George, Lord Carew, writing in June, 161G, to Sir Thomas Koe, says: "Sir Thomas 
Dale returned from Virginia, brought divers men and women of that country to be educated 
in England." 

Eev. William Gouge, D.D., educated at Cambridge, an eminent Puritan, was cousin of 
Rev. Alexander Whitaker, called by Bancroft the Apostle of Virginia, who came with Sir 
Thomas Dale, and in 1617 was drowned. 

Gouge was noted for active benevolence, as well as for scholarship and pulpit oratory. 
In 1643 he was a member of the celebrated Westminster Assembly of Divines, and frequently 
occupied the moderator's chair. After a pastorate of forty-five years at Blackfriars, London, 
he died December 12, 1653, aged 79. When offered more jjrofitable positions he always 
declined, saying that "his highest ambition was to go from Blackfriars to Heaven." 



13 



JOHN ROLFE AND POCAHONTAS. 

Ajn-il 30, 1621. — Sir John Dan vers signified that it was the request of my 
lady Lawarre unto this court, that in consideration of her goods remaining in the 
hands of Mr, Rolfe* in Virginia, she might receive satisfaction for the same out 
of his tobacco now sent home. 

But forasmuch as it is supposed the said tobacco is none of the said Rolfe's, 
but belonged to Mr. Peirce, it was thought fit that ]Mr. Henry Rolfe should 
acquaint my lady Lawarre t of his brother's offer to make her ladyship good and 
faithful account of all such goods as remain in his hands upon her lady's direc- 
tion to that effect. 

July 10, 1621. — " It was signified that the lady Lawarre desired the court would 
please to grant her a commission directed to Sir Francis Wyatt, Mr. George 
Sandys, and others, to examine and certify what goods and money of her late 
husband's, deceased, came to the hands of Mr. Rolfe in the year 1611, and to 
require the attending to his promise [that] she may be satisfied." 

October 7, 1622. — " Mr. Henry Kolfe in his petition desiring the estate his 
brother John Rolfe, deceased, left in Virginia, might be enquired out for the 
maintenance of his relict wife and children, and for his indemnity, having brought 
up the child his said brother had by Powhatan's daughter,^ is yet living and in 
his custody. 

* John Rolfe and wife went to Virginia in the expedition that sailed in 1609 from Eng- 
land, and while detained at Bermuda, where the ships had been stranded in a storm, he 
became the father of a child, who was christened Bermuda Rolfe by Chaplain Buck. 

Strachey, secretary of Lord De Lawarre, says, " The 11th of February [IGIO, old style] 
we had a child of one John Rolfe christened, of which Captain Newport and myself were 
witnesses." (Furchas, volume 4, p. 1744.) 

t She was the widow of Thomas, third Lord Delaware, captain-general of all the provinces 
in Virginia. He had been dead for more than two years. A letter written from London, 
October 5, 1618, says : " This day news arrived of my Lord de la War's death in his voyage 
to Virginia." 

X Strachey, who was Secretary of the colony from May, 1610, for a period of about two 
years, in his Historic of Travaile, published by the Hakluyt Society, several times alludes 
to Powhatan's daughter. In book 1, page 54, he remarks: "I say they often reported to us 
that Powhatan had then living twenty sons and ten daughters, # * * besides 
Pocohuuta, a daughter of his, using sometime to our fort in times past, now married to a 
private captain called Kocoum some two years since." 

On page 132 of the same book he says : "The younger women go not shadowed amongst 
their own company until they be nigh eleven or twelve returns of the leaf old, nor are they 
much ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before-i'emembered Pochahuntas, a well fea- 
tured but wanton young girl, Powhatan's daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of the 
age then of eleven or twelve years, get the boys forth with her into the market place and 
make them wheel, falling on their hands, turning up their heels upwards, whom she would 
follow and wheel so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over." 

On another page he writes: " The great King Powhatan called a young daughter of his, | 
whom he loved well, Pochahuntas, which may signify little wanton, howbeit she was rightlyy 
called Amonate at more ripe years." 

There appears to have been an effort to build up a fifth kingdom and an Anglo-Indian 



14 

It was ordered that the governor and conncil of Virginia should cause inqui 
ries to be what lands and goods the said John Rolfe died seized of; and incase 
it be found the said Rolfe made no will, then to take such order for the petitioner's 
indemnity, and for the maintenance of the said children and his relict wife as 
they shall find his estate will bear, (his debt unto the company and others being 
first satisfied,) and to return unto the company an account of their proceedings." 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH PROPOSES TO COMPILE A HISTORY. 

April 12, 1621. — "Mr. Smith moved, that forasmuch as lotteries were now 
suspended, which hath unto now contributed the real and substantial food by 
which Virginia hath been nourished, that instead thereof she might be now pre- 
served by divulging fair and good report as she and her worthy undertakers 
did well deserve, declaring that it would not but much advance the plantation 
in the popular opinion of the common subject to have a fair and conspicuous 
history compiled of that country from the first discovery to this day, and to 
have the memory and fame of many of their Avorthies, though they be dead, to 
live and be transmitted to all posterity, as namely : Sir Thomas Dale, Sir George 
Soraers, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Lord De-la-warr, Sir Thomas Gates, and divers 
others,* Avhereunto, were it not for suspicions of flattery, he would write also the 

nobility in Virginia by a few adventurers. On September 22, 1612, the Spanish ambassa- 
dor, De Cunega, writes to his King : "Although some suppose the plantation to decrease, he 
is credibly informed that there is a determination to marry some of the people that go over to 
the Virginians ; forty or fifty are already so married, and English women intermingle and are 
received kindly by the natives. A zealous minister has been wounded for reprehending it." 
(Cal. State Papers, colonial, 1584-1 660.) 

The Virginia Company on August 23, J 618, wrote to the crafty Governor* Argall : "We 
cannot imagine why you should give us waraing that Opechankano and the natives have 
given the country to Mr. Rolfe's child, and that they reserve it from all others till he comes 
of years, except, as we suppose, as some do here report it, to be a device of your own, to some 
special purpose for yourself." 

* It is noteworthy that Smith does not allude to Captain Christopher Newport, the commander 
of the first expedition to Virginia, with whom he had sailed and was closely associated during 
the first and second visits of that experienced mariner to Jamestown. 

Thomas Fuller, who was a young man when Smith died, thus describes him in the 
" Worthies of England :" 

"John Smith, captain, was born in this county, [Cheshire,] as Master Arthur Smith, his 
kinsman and my schoolmaster, did inform me. * * * From the Turks in Europe 
he passed to the pagans in America, where such his perils, preservations, dangers, deliver- 
ances, they seem to most men ahove, belief, to some beyond triUk. Yet have we two wit- 
nesses to attest them, the prose and the pictures, both in his own book, and it soundeth much 
to the diminution of his deeds that he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them. * 

* * * He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned 
in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such who were not ingenuous. Yet 
he etforted his spirits with the remembrance and relation of what formerly he had been and 
what he had done. He was buried in Sepulchre's Church choir, on the south side thereof, 
having a ranting epitaph inscribed in a table over him, too long to transcribe. Only we will 
insert the first and last verses, the rather because one may fit Alexander's life for his valour, 
and the other his death for his religion : 

'Here lies one conquered, who hath conquered kings.' 
' O ! may his soul in Elysium sleep.' 



15 

name of many other woitliies now living; and some of them now present in court 
might liave also their honorable and good deserving recommended to eternal 
thankfulness, for our inabilities had, as yet, no other coin wherewith to recom- 
pense their pains and merit ; affirming, also, that the best now planted parts of 
America which the Spanish government, in their annals or their histories of those 
times in their like age of ours, (now twelve years old,) iu Virginia, afforded bet- 
ter matter of relation than Virginia hath done and doth. With what effect such 
a general history, deduced to the life to this year, would work throughout the 
kingdom, with the general and common subjects, may be gathered by the little 
pamphlets * or declarations lately printed. And, besides, few succeeding years 

"The ortbogniphy, poetry, history, aud divinity in this epitaph are much alike. He died 
on the 2Ist of June, JG3)." 

As he is said to liave been born in 1.579, he lived fifry-two years. As the French trav- 
ellers in America, Hennepin and La Hontan, fascinated by their bold misstatements, so did 
John Smith. In a letter written from Jamestown, in October, 16U9, to Cecil, Earl of Salis- 
bury, is the following statement: 

"Captain John Smith, piesident, who reigned sole governor, and is now sent home to 
a7isuer some misdemeatiors " (Cal. State Papers, colonial, 1574-1660.) 

Wingfield, first president of the Virginia colony, in a "Discourse of Virginia," printed from 
the manuscripts in Lambeth library, in volume 4, Coll. Am. Ant. Society, asserts that "Mr. 
Smyth", in the time of our hunger, had spread a rumor in the colony that I did feast myself 
and my servants out of the common store, Avith intent, as I gathered, to have stirred the dis- 
contented company against me. I told him privately, in Mr. Gosnold's tent, that indeed I 
had caused a half pint of peas to be sodden with a piece of pork of my own provision, for a 
poor old man, which, in a sickness whereof he died, he mixch desired, and said, that if out 
of his malice he had given it out otherwise, he did tell a lie. It was proved to his face that 
he begged iu Ireland like a rogue without a license. # # * # ;^jj- Smythe's 
quarrel to me was because his name was mentioned in the intended and confessed mutiny 
by Galthropp." 

* The first pamphlet relative to the colony of Virginia was published in 16C8, with the fol- 
lowing title : 

"ATrve Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapened in Virginia 
since the first planting of that collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till 
the last returne from thence. Written by Captaine Smith, coronell of the said collony, to a 
worshipful! friend of his in England. London. Printed for John Tappe, and are to bee solde 
at the Greyhound in Paules Church-yard, by W. W. 1608." 

This work, carefully edited by Mr. Charles Deane, was reproduced in 1866, by Wiggin & 
Lunt, of Boston. 

In his first book on Virginia, Smith says not one word relative to his ressue from death by 
Pocahontas. After speaking of Powhatan's desire that he should come and live with him, 
he adds: "This request I promised to performe; and thus, having with all the kindnes hee 
could dessire, sought to content mee, hee sent me home with 4 men, one that usually car- 
ried my Gowne and Knapsacke after me, two other loded with bread, and .one to accompanie 
me." (Deane's edition of True Eelation, p. 38.) 

Fifteen years after his return to England he published the "General History," and in 
this Powhatan is transformed to a savage wretch, with his minions dragging the valiant 
captain toward two great stones in front of the Indian king, and being ready with their clubs 
to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the king's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could pre- 
vail, got his head into her arms aud laid her own upon his to save him from death." 

Mr. Deane clearly points out the embellishments and contradictions in his last work, giv- 
ing "to the narrative an air of romance." 

Palfrey says Smith " travelled about the south and west of England distributing books and 



16 

■would soon consume the lives of many whose living memories yet retained much, 
and devour those letters and intelligences which yet remain in loose and neglected 
papers, for which boldness, in moving thereof, he prayed his lordship's pardon, 
led thereunto by some of his fellows of the generality." 

NAVIGATION PROPOSED. 

March IS, 1619, old style. — Sir Edwin Sandys " also signified that Sir George 
Yeardley desired of them, for the good of the colony, that a navigation might be 
set up Avhich would produce good benefit to the plantation, and, to that end, 
nominated unto them one Marmaduke Rayner,* who is willing to go, if they 
please to give him his passage, which man being also well known to Sir Thomas 
Roe, he gave very good commendations of him, whereupon it Avas agreed, upon 
the terms mentioned, he should be sent." 

PROPOSED SETTLEMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

Novonbcr 15, 1620. — " Some of the Soraers Island Company moved that the 
court would be pleased, as well in respect tliat the Bermudas was sold unto them 
for a far greater quantity of land than they now find it to be, as also for the 
better enabling of them to subsist and procure and maintain a mutual depend- 
ence and traffic hereafter, to grant and confirm unto them, in this great and gen- 
eral quarter court, a good portion of land in Virginia, on that side of the coast 
as lies neai'est unto them, either at Ronoque southerly, or else whereat shall be 
most convenient for them, not being yet inhabited ; which request the court tak- 
ing into consideration, did order and agree, that according to the number of their 
shares, being in all 400 or thereabouts, they should have for every share 100 
acres of laud in Virginia, and fifty acres for every person that shall be trans- 
ported thither. * * * * The court ordered that a letter should 
be written to the governor to set out their bounds and limits where they shall 
like best to seat themselves, so as they may not be prejudicial to any other plan- 
tation there already." 

DISCOVERIES OF RAYNER, SAVAGE, AND DERMEE. 

July 10, 1621. — "There was also read unto the company a relation of three 
several voyages, made this last summer, unto the southward to Roanocke.made 
by Mr. Marmaduke Rayner ; a second by Ensign Savadge t in the great bay, 

maps;" (History of N. England, volume 1, p. 95,) and in a note remarks : "I presume I am 
not the first reader who lias been haunted by incredulity rsspectiug some of the adventures of 
Smith." (Volume 1, p. 89.) 

* The following summer Rayner made three voyages to North Carolina, and in 1627 was 
master of the ship Temperance, which sailed from Virginia to London. • 

t Purchas (volume 4, p. 1784) gives the credit of this discovery to Pory. His words are : 
" Master John Porie hath of late made a discovery into the great bay northward, * * 
where are now settled near one hundred English very happily, with hope of a very good trade 
in furs there to be had." ' 

This was probably the commencement of the settlement of Kent island in Chesapeake bay. 



17 

wherein is a great trade of furs by Frenchmen ; a third, Mr. Dirmer s discovery 
from Cape Charles to Cape Codd, up Delaware river and Hudson's river, being 
but twenty or thirty leagues from our plantation, and within our limits, in which 
rivers were found divers ships of Amsterdam and Horn, who yearly had there a 
great and rich trade for furs, which have moved the governor and council of 
state in Virginia earnestly to solicit and invite the company to undertake so 
certain and gainful a voyage." 

As early as 1613, Argall sailed with Sir Thomas Dale up this bay, and in a letter predicted 
that they could " find a safe passage for boats and barges thither by a cut out of the bottom 
of the bay into the Delaware bay." (Purchas, volume 4, p. 1764.) 



